Y'see, in recent times, I've taken to hitting
the web directly after watching either a
vintage movie or TV show on DVD, armed with
the previously unfamiliar name of some otherwise
highly recognizable character actor whose
image had only minutes earlier flickered
across my television screen.

I did this again a few night back after viewing
a 1965 episode of "The Dick Van Dyke
Show" entitled "A Farewell To Writing".
In this one, Rob goes off to a mountain cabin,
hoping the solitude will enable him to finally
write that novel he'd long been meaning to.
Well, all he winds up doing is procrastinating--and
going a little stir crazy in the process,
enough so as to scare the cabin's caretaker,
Horace, very amusingly played by a fellow
named Guy Raymond.

So, I Googled Guy Raymond, and as always,
I was directed to his imdb--International
Movie Data Base--listing, and it was an impressive
one (if not all that out of the ordinary
for a popular sixties character actor--though
he did turn up as Trader in the legendary
"Trouble With Tribbles" episode
of the original "Star Trek").

What DID get my attention was the notation
under his bio which indicated that he was
the step-father of Hallie Todd!

I remember Hallie Todd from the mid-eighties
Showtime sitcom, "Brothers", one
of the very first ongoing original shows
produced by a pay cable outfit. The program
revolved around three brothers, of which
Robert ("Lou Grant") Walden was
the central figure, and Hallie Todd played
his teenage daughter. It was a fairly decent
series, and since we were paying for it,
I figured, hey, might as well watch it (and
maybe that's why we haven't had pay cable
for nearly twenty years--too much financial
pressure to watch in order to justify the
expense, dig?..).

Anyway, Hallie totally dropped off my radar
for a decade and a half until, back in 2001
she turned up again as a sitcom regular--but
this time, not as the teen, but as the teen's
MOM!

Cast opposite Robert Carradine (son of John,
half-brother of David) as her husband, she
played the bespeckled Jo McGuire on Disney
Channels' "Lizzie McGuire"!

Our daughter Julie was just the right age
for this show when it first hit the airwaves,
so we gave it a look-see. Much to our mutual
surprise, it turned out that the whole family--Lynn,
Julie, and I--all truly enjoyed the series,
and watched it faithfully for its entire
run!

That's right, people--I considered "Lizzie
McGuire" appointment television. Wanna
make something of it? Those of you who've
actually seen the show will understand...

Anyway, I was mildly shocked to find out
that the fella who brought firewood to Rob
Petrie was the step-dad of Lizzie McGuire's
video mom, but things were gonna get even
more surprising once I clicked the link over
to Hallie Todd's imdb listing.

You know who HER mom was? The woman Guy Raymond
married in 1966, a year after he filmed those
aforementioned scenes on "The Dick Van
Dyke Show"?

THIS even more familiar face...

Millie Helper!
That's right, Rob and Laura's neighbor (aka
Ann Morgan Guilbert) apparently kicked Jerry
to curb after the DVD Show shut down production
and then took up with mountain man Horace,
raising the future Jo McGuire together!

(Gee, I wonder if there's any validity to
the rumor that Britney Spears is actually
a distant relation of Pickles Sorell?..)

November 26th, 2007

It's Cyber Monday!!

According to the people on the TV, that's
the online shopping sequel to Black Friday,
when folks go back to work after the Thanksgiving
holiday weekend and then spend most of their
time on the computer trying to find Christmas
gifts for their loved ones!

Well, far be it for Hembeck.com to buck such
a profitable trend, so today, we're offering
up five brand spanking new hand-crafted illos,
all of which are currently available on eBay
(auction links located at the end of this
shamelessly commercial blog entry.

First off, for the Dr.Strange fan who has
everything (a full set of the Rings of Raggador,
Vishanti Panties, Curse Me For A Novice Fragrance
For Men, et al...), we have this:

But maybe the Ditko fanatic on our
Christmas
list is a wee bit more down to Earth
and
would prefer a certain webspinner to
a mystical
Doc. No problem--check out friend Spidey
and that group of reprobates known
as The
Sinister Six...

Perhaps you know a tough guy who maybe, on
the inside, is really just an old softie.
Well, sir or madam, have I got the perfect
drawing for you! Because in all of the comics
world, are there any three tougher dudes
than Batman, Wolverine, and The Punisher?
But, y'know, they've got a sensitive side
too--take a look...

Then there's the sorta love you'll find in
a family, which can get a little on the,
well, rambunctious side at times. And who's
proven that little truism more often over
the years than the good ol' Fantastic Four?..

Lastly, for this life-long New York Mets
fan, I'd have to say the thing that's connected
to that OTHER team in town that I enjoy most
would easily have to be Tom Peyer's always hilarious Yankees blog. This, then--a recounting of an actual dream
I had last night--is for you, Tom...

It's early in the 2008 baseball campaign,
the season following the Amazin' Collapse.
I'm watching the Mets play a home game on
my TV. The other team--don't know who they
are, they're just the other team--have men
on second and third, one out. The batter
hits a screaming line drive that the Mets
All Star and (debatable) Gold Glove third
baseman, David Wright, spears on the fly
for the second out.

Only Wright then proceeds to slowly roll
the ball out towards the mound, thinking
it's the third out and that the inning is
over!!

I put my hands over my eyes and groan loudly--as
does everyone else in Shea Stadium--two runners
come in to score, and then, apparently prepared
for this sort of mental lapse by his team,
manager Willie Randolph runs out and makes
all nine men on the field--as well as the
reserves in the dugout--immediately get down
and give him fifty push-ups!! As the camera
pans widely over the spectacle of a game
delayed by punishment, I suddenly realize
I'm not sitting alone in front of the tube.
Over to my side, in a straight back chair
dressed in casual street clothes is the new
Yankees skipper, Joe Girardi. He looks away
from the action on the screen, smiles knowingly
at me , and says, "Gee, I sure am glad
THAT team didn't hire me to be their new
manager!!"

And then my cat Luigi's meowing woke me up
to let him out, my rejoinder to the Yank's
newest Joe lost to the mists of my subconscious
for all time.

And howsabout a little Marvel/DC rivalry
action? Generally, my sympathies like in
the direction of The House of Ideas, but
a sprint between The Flash and Quicksilver?
C'mon--no contest! Sorry, Magneto--you may
be Homo Superior, but not when it comes to
foot race pitting your boy, Pietro, against
good ol' Barry Allen, you come up second
every time! Examine the enlarged evidence here, buckethead!...

(Oh sure, since the pics in question originated
from wife Lynn's Facebook page, I suppose
I could've sent you directly from here to
there, but considering all the plugs my old
pal Rog tosses my way, I figured the least
I owed him was sending folks on a stop-over
at his always interesting Ramblin' With Rog blog. And besides, he IS the man who put
the "fan" in "Fantacon"!
As for the one who put the "con"
in "Fantacon", well, THAT'S a whole
'nother story!....)

And speaking of belated thanks, besides Mr.
Green, there are a whole buncha folks who
deserve my sincere thanks for devoting some
of their web content to THIS li'l volume
shortly after I announced its impending publication
a few weeks back....

Then there was this, found (via a modest
bout of, ahem, self-Googling) over at Brian Hughes Again With The Comics--not only does he plug the book, but by using
some of my old pages (all of which will indeed
be included in the Omnibus) makes the case
for yours truly being The Very First Comics Blogger! Thanks, Brian--you appear to be a very,
very bright lad! Hey, you won ME over with
your theory!...

Thanks, then, to one and all for spreading
the word! And my sincere apologies to anybody
I may've inadvertently left out of this particular
roll call of appreciation--so sorry.

i bring this all up because, well, The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives
Omnibus (and yup, that's the link to Hembeck.com's
own info page) will very soon--if it hasn't
already--make its appearance in the very
next edition of the Diamond Previews catalog,
So I just thought it might be (heh) time
to REMIND everyone about it. Guess you could
say this is a little bit of overkill--but
then, you could say that about a book containing
900 pages of my stuff too, couldn't ya?

Gotta sell us some books, friends, so settle
in for plenty of sales jobs--both soft and
hard (that's what she said)--between now
and our mid-February release date. And who
knows--probably after that as well.

Hey, good thing I don't publish an Omnibus
every day, huh?...

November 16th, 2007

I watched 1935's "Werewolf of London"
last night. Though not held in nearly
as
high a regard as the subsequent Lon
Chaney
Jr. vehicle, 1941's "The Wolf
Man",
I found the tale of Henry Hull's upper
crust
British botanist cursed with a bad
hair night
(or three) superior in at least one
way--there
was a whole lot more werewolf action
on display
than in the surprisingly stingy big
screen
debut of Larry Talbot, and back when
I was
a kid first watching these hoary old
monster
movies, the creature de jour's percentage
of screen time ALWAYS counted for a
whole
lot! Plus, Hull's deathbed oratory--delivered
in full make-up AND with an impeccable
English
accent--makes for a more satisfying
end to
the flick than the general, "everything
blows up, the romantic leads walk off
safely,
cue end title card" that would
become
the norm for a majority of these Universal
films.

But that's not REALLY what I want to
talk
about today. No, I want to discuss
a little
throwaway line that I nonetheless managed
to totally fixate upon from the moment
I
first heard it--and in fact couldn't
get
out of my noggin throughout the remainder
of the film (or, apparently, the day
after,
either.).

It occurred about fifteen minutes in.
After
returning from Tibet, the good doctor
is
dragged off to a snooty party by his
young
wife. She soon runs into an old, old
friend,
and just by the way they look at each
other,
you immediately KNOW they were once
an item--and
so does the Doc! When the missus introduces
her childhood companion to a suspicious
hubby,
a loose-lipped aunt (played as perpetually
tipsy by future "December Bride",
Spring Bryington) happily announces
not only
were the two longtime pals, he once
actually
proposed to her!

A feral look plays across the Doc's
hairless
face, the couple exchange nervously
guilty
glances, and then finally, the botanist's
young bride diffuses the situation
by adding
THIS salient fact to the discussion:

""I was six at the time.
He was
twelve."

That seemed to satisfy the scenario's
players,
but excuse me, did I hear that right--he
was TWELVE when he proposed to a SIX
YEAR
OLD???

Meaning a seventh grade boy was trolling
the little girls in the first grade
for dates?
Really? And this somehow seemed REASONABLE?

I mean, switch the ages, and it just
sounds
cute, whether it's the girl or the
boy doing
the asking--a six year old having a
crush
on someone twice their age is sorta
sweet.
A twelve year old boy (or girl) wanting
to
wed someone half their age, though?

EWWWW!!

Obviously, at a certain point, a six or seven
year age gap doesn't make much difference,
but between six and twelve? Geez, the whole
notion just creeped me out. Maybe the movie's
producers wanted to account for the obvious
age difference between the two actors, but
they could've just as easily had the young
lady inform her jealous husband that said
proposal happened back when they were kids--NOT
when she was six and he was twelve!

So when all's said and done, THAT'S
what
I took away from MY viewing of "Werewolf
of London"--who'da thot?

November 15th, 2007

Well, I finally made it all the way through
the three interconnected Universal
Monsters
series--Frankenstein, Dracula, The
Wolfman--and
in sequential order, too, something
that
wasn't possible the first time (and
pretty
much the LAST time) I viewed this classic
horror cycle as a kid back in the mid-sixties,
as I was most assuredly at the mercy
of late-night
creature feature scheduling whims in
those
days.

Last one up (nor counting "Abbot
and
Costello Meet Frankenstein" which
I
confess I skipped ahead and watched
back
on Halloween's Eve) was 1945's "House
of Dracula". At first, I seemed
to have
very little memory of it, as the opening
scene featuring John Carradine as a
top-hatted
Drac wasn't at all familiar to me.
Soon enough,
though we were down in the laboratory
of
Onslow Stevens (and the fact that I
IMMEDIATELY
recognized the obscure actor by name
tells
you a lot about the power captions
in an
issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS can have on
an impressionable
pre-adolescent), and the camera zooms
in
on a close-up of his pretty brunette
nurse
assistant toiling behind a table full
of
test-tubes and other scientific props.

I'm still thinking, nothing here rings
a
bell.

And then the camera pans back as she
casually
walks out from behind the table.

DING DONG!!

The hunchbacked nurse--sure! Hey, that's
something you just DON'T forget--suddenly
it was all coming back...

But as the movie played on, something
ELSE
began to bug me--that nurse--Jane Adams
by
name--looked awfully familiar somehow
, but
oddly enough, NOT from anything I'd
ever
seen her do in front of the camera.

And then it hit me--with her wavy black hair,
always in place and always with a sheen,
and her ability to regularly pop her eyes
with convincing terror, she looked like nothing
less than a walking, talking, cinematic personification
of an Al Feldstein horror comics heroine!!

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good still
from "House of Dracula" to prove
my point, but take a look at this same-era
publicity photo and the Feldstein gal directly
below it and see if you don't think my notion
has at least a little merit, hmm??

Funny what you see (or THINK you see) in
those old movies--mid-way through "Son
Of Dracula" when the male romantic lead
believes he's killed his lady friend and
subsequently goes mad, he runs around in
a panic for the duration of the picture,
his hair tousled, his thin gangly body lithe,
making him the spitting image for the pre-Marine,
gas-pumping Gomer Pyle back in his Mayberry
days!!

Surprise, surprise, surprise!!

Gee, if only Lon Chaney had come off with
more of a Frank Sutton vibe in the title
role, well then, Gol-leeee, we sure woulda
had us one heckuva movie, that's for sure!!...

November 12th, 2007

Got some more drawings to share with y'all!

That there's the THUNDER Agents for you young
'uns--Dynamo's leading the way, followed
by Lightning, Menthor, with NoMan bringing
up the rear.

And speaking of the THUNDER Agents, who can
ever forget the lovely--if somewhat stiff--Iron
Maiden? She may have been among his greatest
enemies, but I'm betting you the only reason
Dynamo never pursued her romantically was
simply a fear that, eventually she'd tire
of him and he'd get canned!

Too bad Mr. A wasn't equipped for personalized
space travel--I'm sure he'd approve of this
little clear cut issue of black and white,
as two products of the fertile mind of Jack
Kirby, The Silver Surfer and The Black Racer,
meet cruising the spaceways!

We've got a number of topics to cover today,
so grab onto something sturdy, and
let's
get moving, shall we?

First off, the last word is in on that Mystery
Woman from Ditko's Rom--Lee K. Seitz declares
it to be Shadowcat (Kitty Pride), and (with
a little help from Paul Bourcier of The Marvel
Chronology Project) has the proof to back
up his claim:

That's the way Marvel's own OFFICIAL INDEX
TO THE X-MEN vol 2, #4 (July 1994) has it
listed, y'see! So that should put an end
to THAT! Thanks, Lee--and to you too, Paul.

Secondly, it's been quite awhile since I
participated in one of those "Five For
Friday" list thingies over at The Comics Reporter (mainly cuz Tom suspended 'em for several
months, and when he did bring the feature
back, the question of the week usually went
up so late on a Friday--and I usually surf
the site during the AM--that I consistently
missed out on adding my two cents entirely),
but finally, I've had the chance to answer
one of the pressing questions of the day.

You folks all know by now that I do commissions.
Well, I did one last week that I kinda liked
and i thought I'd share it with you. My patron
requested a drawing of Batman, with a few
background elements thrown in. My first few
thumbnails strived for a short-eared, Dick
Sprang type feel, which would've made for
a pretty decent piece--IF things had been
working for me, but they just weren't.

Then I recalled his email instructions--he'd
urged me to go all "Hembeck" on
Batman! What exactly does that mean? Hey,
even I don't know for sure, but taking his
advice to heart, here's what I came up with...

Another commission related tale has to do
with a gent named Clive Banks. After purchasing
one of my eBay pieces, he engaged me to produce
a redo of FANTASTIC FOUR #12 for him. Said
artwork is currently wending its way towards
his home base in the U.K., and you folks
really shouldn't see it before he does, and
besides, that's not even the point of this
story.

Y'see, in the course of our earlier communication,
he suggested I take a look at his website,
the link to which was helpfully included
in his electronic missive. Nowadays, EVERYONE
has a website, don't they? But if only to
be polite (hey, after all, this fine fella
is sending some of his hard-earned shekels
my way, y'know...), I took a peek.
Wow!!!

And me, well, I've become hooked on those
Universal Monster Movie collections I finally
busted out of their plastic encasements about
a week before Halloween. Fact is, soon as
I wrap this up, I'm gonna go watch "House
of Dracula", the seventh (and final,
save for the Abbott and Costello co-starrer)
in the Frankenstein Monster cycle! Most of
these flicks I haven't seen in over forty
years, but I still got as big a charge as
I did way back when at hearing Bela Lugosi's
sibilant tones waft out of the monster's
mouth during the final moments of "The
Ghost Of Frankenstein" shortly after
Ygor's brain was transplanted into the big
guy's body!

When i was a kid, we had something on NY's
WOR called "The Million Dollar Movie"
The format: each week, one movie would be
selected to play twice a day Monday through
Friday, and then four or five times each
on Saturday and Sunday! One movie! And most
of the Universal creature features received
this treatment--and with "Ghost of Frankenstein",
I made it a point to tune into those transcendent
final moments as often as I possibly could!
Lugosi's Ygor was enough of a hoot on his
own, but dubbing Lon Chaney Jr.s lumbering
patchwork patsy?

Priceless!!

(And howabout the fact that, just this past
week, I had the opportunity to view, in this
order over three consecutive evenings, Lon
Junior as the Count himself in "Son
of Dracula", buried under make-up as
the monster in the aforementioned "Ghost",
and THEN in the next sequel as the monster's
hairy co-star in "Frankenstein Meets
The Wolfman"? Now THAT'S versatility!

(And in the latter offering, Lugosi steps
into the monsters' really, REALLY big shoes,
to totally ridiculous effect--seems as if,
after suffering blindness from having Ygor's
brain at the end of "Ghost", the
monster still couldn't see. Unfortunately,
all the lines explaining this affliction
were snipped when Lugosi's voice coming out
of the monster's lips drew guffaws at test
showings, so while the monster once again
remained mute, left completely unexplained
was the over-the-top flailing about Lugosi's
sight-impaired Frankie did throughout. Which,
out of proper context, looks just plain stupid.
Ah, but that's all part of the fun, isn't
it.?..)

Anything else? Oh yeah--I'd like to note
that I wholeheartedly support the WGA strike;
and speaking as a Mets fan, please, no A
Rod, thank you very much!...

November 10th, 2007

Old business first...

Thanks to Steve Chung, Lee Seitz, and
MySpacers
Bob and David, but just as it was last
time,
Burke was the first to correctly identify
those international heroes pictured
in that
final panel of the Rom page I posted
yesterday...
As for those characters in the Captain
Britain
panel, they are, in order from left
to right:
Arabian Knight, who first appeared
in a Bill
Mantlo Hulk issue, I believe; Le Peregrine
is a French hero and the woman in green
is
Shamrock. They both first appeared
in Contest
Of Champions in 1982, I think the year
was;
Captain Britain, of course; American
Eagle
who first appeared in Marvel Two-In-One
annual
6; and Blitzkrieg from West Germany
who also
debuted in Contest Of Champions.

Hope that's helpful, sir!

Immeasurably, Burke--your word is law! (And
THAT arcane reference is just for YOU, Terry!...),

Bob also forwarded along this provocative
little nugget concerning Cloud from Ed Coyote..

My recollections of Cloud are that
if she
wore a T-shirt at all, it was probably
around
the headquarters. Seems to me that
when "at
large", she was nude with "clouds"
floating around her to keep her decent
for
the comics code.

Well, that certainly got MY attention--and
I figured if I sifted through my old DEFENDERS
comics, I'd easily find myself a bounty of
peek-a-boo panels spotlighting the aforementioned
Cloud, ripe for posting! (Hey, we can always
use a little boost in traffic over here at
Hembeck.com., y'know!...)

This then, courtesy of Don Perlin and Kim
DeMulder, is from 1983's DEFENDERS #123,
Cloud's debut...

And THAT friends, is about as randy as it
ever got!

She (who would upon later occasions, transform
into a "he", with the chest-high
cloud covering mysteriously disappearing
in the process) appeared fairly regularly
up through issue 150 before being turned
into some sort of cosmic entity (go here for all the details), but was generally relegated to background
status, with her near nekkid status NEVER
exploited in order to give the audience any
cheap thrills!!

@#$!

Think about it--a totally naked girl floating
around with only a wispy covering of clouds
to keep the Comic Code at bay, and the folks
at Marvel two decades back DIDN'T mine the
situation for all the sales potential sleaze
that they clearly could've!

Stunning!

But maybe not quite as stunning as this OTHER
pieces of art that I came across in that
self-same issue of THE DEFENDERS (check the
text)...

John Byrne--doing his buddy, Jim Shooter,
a favor! Like I said, stunning...

Really nice drawing, though.

November 9th, 2007

You might recall that just a few short days
ago, I posted a piece of art from a 1985
issue of ROM that featured a wide ranging
assemblage of Marvel Super-heroes, beautifully
drawn by the awe-inspiring team of Steve
Ditko and P. Craig Russell

it was a real purty picture, and after stumbling
across it, I just felt like sharing it with
you folks, simple as that.

And that woulda been the end of it too, if
it weren't for Jim Salicrup (always causing
trouble, that Salicrup...).

"So who is that woman next to Valkyrie and
above Mockingbird!?!"

Huh--beats me.

My first inclination was to assume it was
a mis-colored She-Hulk, but her grooming
was far too fastidious for that to be the
case. Besides, when I turned the page, there
she was again--and this time, she was tacitly
included amongst the pictured X-Men...

(Please note that the above pieces are a
pair of panels stretching across the book's
centerfold, and my scanner isn't quite large
enough to fit two full pages into it at a
time, so I've instead stacked two scans.
Gee, if only they were larger, then you could
see our mystery maiden a little better.

Oh wait--how about we zoom in for a
detail?...)

Is it a member of Rom's supporting cast,
as Nik ventured? I don't think so--two pages later,
a Brandy Clark shows up (side by side with
none other than Rick Jones--man, that guy's
EVERYWHERE!!), and she's dressed entirely
in a red top with white slacks, sports a
slightly different hairdo, and even has some
dialog! Our lady friend pictured here appears
in but these two panels.

My MySpace friend Randy has a notion:

OK, here's my guess. Don't ask me how
the
holy heck I remember this, but from
looking
at the pic and seeing as how she is
in the
same row as the Defenders (Angel, Beast,
Iceman, Valkyrie, Moondragon and Gargoyle)
my guess is that she is Candy Southern.

She was Angel's girlfriend at the time
and
also served as leader of the team for
reasons
that I couldn't fathom then and still
can't
now. She even went into battle with
them,
which made sense since she had no super-powers
or fighting ability whatsoever.
Burke seconds that emotion!

You are correct, sir! That is Candy
Southern.
I remember her being appointed team
leader
in the same month as Heather Hudson
was appointed
team leader of Alpha Flight. Marvel
was making
some sort of progressive stance back
in the
day.

It totally makes sense that she was
grouped
with the X-Men on the following page
as Fred
mentions, since the New Defenders were
essentially
the original X-Men. They just needed
Cyclops
for leadership but apparently he couldn't
leave the mansion.

Bob posted the conundrum on line, and this
is what he came up with..

This from Eric Northcutt of the Silver
Age
Reviews Group:

"The timeline is right for Candy
Southern
being leader of the New Defenders at
the
time. However, looking at the other
members
of the New Defenders present in the
shot
(Valkyrie, Gargoyle, Beast, Iceman,
Angel,
and Moondragon), I notice only one
absence
from the Defenders' roster at the time:
a
young blonde-haired girl named Cloud
who
frequently wore t-shirts as her "costume".
I could see this being a miscolored
Cloud."

Me, I was never a Defenders fan, never
heard
of Cloud before, and only remember
Candy
Southern from John Byrne's "X-Men:
the
Hidden Years," so I'm no judge.
I put
this information into your hands..

But now MY question is, if she was
a member
of the Defenders, why then wasn't she
hanging
with her homies on the subsequent page?...

Ah well, a trivial matter by anyone's definition,
but fun nonetheless--AND a great excuse to
post three more pages of Steve and P. Craig's
exquisite artistry! Thanks to all who took
the time to participate--and I know it ain't
over yet! Just take a look at that last panel!

I recognize Captain Britain, of course, and
a bunch of the others were characters Rom-scripter
Bill Mantlo dreamt up for some earlier Marvel
Olympic treasury Edition tie-ins, but curse
me for a novice--I sure can't recall their
names!

Recently, I was faced with the task of producing
a drawing of Rom (the details of which I'll
share with you in the days to come), so in
dire need of reference, I went downstairs
and fished out a pile of ROM comics that
hadn't seen the light of day in over twenty
years. And with all due respect to ROM's
long standing, initial penciller, Sal Buscema,
I chose instead to exhume the last seventeen
issues, numbers 59 through 75 inclusive,
plus the fourth Annual, as these were all
pencilled by the legendary Steve Ditko.

Well, maybe "pencilled" is a bit
strong--given the wide degree of interpretation
the various inkers (or perhaps "finishers"
would be more accurate) afforded them, it's
pretty obvious that Ditko turned in what
amounted to little more than breakdowns.
But when you're as distinct and unique a
stylist as Ditko was (and is), that''s all
you need--especially if you're given a sympathetic
delineator to complete the job. For the most
part that was the case, most especially in
regards to P. Craig Russell, a top-tier talent
in his own right, and one who knew just how
much of his own touch to add without overwhelming
Ditko.

(Ironically, arguably the two greatest inkers
of Marvel's early years, Tom Palmer and Joe
Sinnott, in what may be their only shots,
respectively, at Ditko's pencils, come on
far too strong. Palmer's job--#60--is typically
lush and beautifully rendered, but so sublimates
Ditko, you almost forget he's there--and
that sure ain't easy to do! Joe's issue--#73--largely
follows a female protagonist, whom the masterful
Sinnott gives his typical treatment, but
somehow, trying to pretty up a Ditko Dame
by turning her into a Sinnott Sweetie just
doesn't jell. But it's interesting to look
at simply as a curiosity, and I'm betting
if the pencils had been a bit tighter, the
Ditko/Sinnott team would've meshed far better.)

Otherwise, Ditko's run featured a couple
issues apiece inked by Brett Breeding and
Bob Layton, and single contributions from
the team of Akin and Garvey, Steve Leialoha,
Kim DeMulder, Jackson Guice, and John Byrne
(!), with the Annual's chores completed by
Al Milgrom. Most of these gents did a decent
job of it, and Ditko's layouts are surprisingly
energetic, often eschewing the nine and six
panel grid approaches he's long been known
for. Hey, these issues ain't AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
or "Dr . Strange", but they're
still a lot of fun to take a second look
at.

And say, where exactly do you suppose the
ol' Webhead and the Master of the Mystic
Arts WERE the day Rom managed to round up
everyone from Beta Ray Bill to Tigra and
Moon Dragon to help save the Earth from the
threat of the Dire Wraiths anyway, hmmm?

Well, at least we got to see Ditko draw Starfox
and that's SOMETHING, right?

Right?

RIGHT??...

(...Y'know, I'd've settled for a long-shot
silhouette of sweet ol' Aunt May, to tell
the truth...)

I just read that actor Justin Bruening--who
recently left ABC' "All My Children"
after several years of portraying Jamie Martin,
the college-aged son of one of AMC's long-time
central figures, Tad Martin--has been tapped
to star in the upcoming "Knight Rider"
revival. Starting out as a trial balloon,
the two hour telefilm will cast Bruening
in the role of the son of the David Hasselhoff''s
character from the original series.

The amazing coincidence?

On the new "Knight Rider", young
Justin will play the son of a character named
Michael Knight--coming directly on the heels
of a lengthy stint on "All My Children"
playing the son of a character essayed by
an ACTOR named Michael Knight!!

Look, like I said, it made ME chuckle,
okay??...

(EDIT: Shortly after I posted the above,
one of my MySpace friends, Philospher Rogue,
reminded me ot an earlier, inter-connected
coincidence. Seems as if David Hasselhoff
was once married to actress Catherine Hickland
(currently seen on ABC's "One Life To
Live"), but she eventually divorced
the ersatz Michael Knight so as to wed the
real thing, AMC's MK! Like Phil says, you
can't make this stuff up--thanks, pal!...)

(And one more personal entry in the Department
of Television Based Irony, if you will: should
the impending writer's strike--motivated,
in large part, by the scribe's not getting
a fair shake in regards to DVD monies--lasts
for any appreciable time, it'll give me the
opportunity to finally view some of the many
DVDs that have been piling up around here,
unwatched mainly because of my constant attempt
to keep up with current programming! Hey,
I wish only the best of luck to all the members
of the WGA--and to ME, finally getting through
that second season of "Gomer Pyle, USMC"!!!....)

November 2nd, 2007

Good--I see everyone's arrived for the party!!

HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY, STEVE DITKO!!

Steve Ditko, as I've said repeatedly, has
long been my favorite cartoonist. Ever since
I first read the back-up story he illustrated
in STRANGE TALES #101 at the tender age of
nine (me, not Ditko), I've been totally hooked.
I wish him only the best of wishes on this,
his 80th birthday!

You'll find some new artwork down towards
the bottom of this post, but first, it's time for my yearly Halloween post mortem...

Well, despite yesterday being the warmest
day in weeks--topping out in the upper sixties,
with an evening in the mild mid-fifties--we
had by far the worst turn-out of Trick or
Treaters in the dozen years we've lived here
(of course, I spent the first six of those
late October evenings accompanying my daughter
roaming the streets in search of sweets,
but still, Lynn said things were never this
slow). Four teenage boys, dressed very casually,
showed up at 5;42 (and because Daylight Savings
Time had been pushed back a week, it wasn't
even dark yet). I asked them, wise guy that
I am, what exactly they were supposed to
be, and one of them proceeded to happily
lift up his shirt and proudly display some
fake bullet holes he'd scrawled on his chest
with some make-up--guess that made him a
crime victim, huh? Turned out to be a bit
too chilly for him to go house to house sans
top. Just as well--we adhere strictly to
the standard "No Shirt, No Service"
policy on all major holidays...

Our next group came along at 7:25, more than
an hour and a half later (and yes, I kept
track--kinda sad, huh?...)! Four more teenagers,
but at least they had proper costumes on.
Then, the big flurry: three young kids at
7:44, two more a minute later, our youngest
visitor (seven or eight maybe) at 7:50 with
both parents in tow, and a pair of blond
siblings dressed all in black mere seconds
later.

And that was it !

Sixteen kids, six groups, all done by 7:50.
Usually we get at least double that, maybe
more, all the way up until 9 o'clock. But
last night, nope, not even close. I guess
the neighborhood's growing older. Like I
said last time, Julie was at her Physics
class, and didn't get home until after ten.
Still, she at least wore a quickly thrown
together Cupid costume to school that morning
(and she even got her cardboard bow and arrow
past the front door without causing any sort
of security incident! I guess arrows of love
are somehow exempt of scrutiny , huh?...),
so that was at least something...

Me, well I made a point of specifically going
out to Staples to make some copies that very
morning because I remembered how last Halloween
all the store's personnel preformed their
duties while in full regalia. My buddy Bruce
in the copy department was dressed up as
a vampire, and when I saw him last week,
I asked if he was planning to get all duded
up again this October 31st, and he assured
me he was.

So imagine my disappointment when I got there
only to find him absent--and NOBODY else
garishly decked out either!! Bummer. Driving
over to the Stop and Shop later, I DID see
a teenaged witch sitting outside a Michael's
Craft Store, smoking, and hardly looking
like she was into the whole dress-up thing.
At least the middle aged woman packing groceries
in the penguin costume looked to be in the
spirit of things--even if the cashier and
the customers in the check-out aisle one
over were talking--however admiringly--about
how suited she seemed to be to portray a
penguin due to her shortness of stature and
the propensity of her girth! Gee, thanks
for the compliments, gang...

Otherwise, I watched "It's The Great
Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" for the first
time in decades, caught Regis and Kelly's
Halloween show in 3-D (using an old pair
of glasses from one of my fifties' Harvey
3-D books) (the show was pretty lame overall,
and memo to Gelman: shooting silly string
at the camera is hardly a cutting edge effect),
listened to the commentary track for the
1931 "Frankenstein" flick while
I was at the drawing board, and at night's
end, ultimately wound up catching Jimmy Kimmel's
Halloween episode, which I stumbled across
while I was preparing to watch "Bride
of Frankenstein", which I never got
to cuz i couldn't take my eyes off Jimmy,
who did the whole show dressed as Captain
Crunch! Hey, it wasn't a classic, but it
was better than Regis and Kelly...

Another Halloween come and gone. Should
that
be "boo!", or maybe "boo
hoo",
huh?...

Oh, and one of the reasons I went to
Staples
was to shrink down some illos so that
they'd
fit in my scanner.